I am a new third grade teacher and I plan to have a listening center in the classroom. I have NO books on tape or anything at this point. I am trying to decide if I should invest in a cassette player or go for the mp3 route. I know that students are used to using mp3/ipods all the time and if given the opportunity are responsible enough to use it. But how convienient would it be? Is it easier to just buy cds/tapes? I also have found some good math cds (multiplication facts) that I wish to use...there are workbooks that accompany the cd. However you can also purchase the cd on itunes.....basically i dont want to waste money.

If this makes any sense which should I go with: cassette player, cd player, mp3/ipod?

Wow...this is such a great idea...with the MP3 players! Unfortunatley, I teach in a low income school district and my students do not have access to those...so I go with a CD player...I hardly see any cassettes anymore! Are many popular children's books on itunes? If so, and you feel confident in letting your students use this technology, I think with the way the world is moving, it's an AWESOME idea!

I would go with CD players and/or MP3 players. I have two individual CD players and I have two personal mp3 players. I would like to get a couple more mp3 players or write a grant for them (not sure).

I don't have a lot of books on tape/CD so I use audacity (freeware) and record myself reading the stories. Then I can put them on a CD or transfer them to an mp3 player. I try to only do one story per disc when I use CDs. However, if you decide to go with mp3 players get ones with screens so the students can see the story titles and pick the one that goes with the book they're reading.

I've switched to personal electronics because it's easier to differentiate levels. It works well because even if I don't have a book on CD I can easily record it for my students. My students use both the mp3 players and the CD players equally well, but they enjoy the novelty of the mp3 players more.

These are all great ideas! I think I will price out the mp3 players and just check them out. It is my first year so I have a LOT of things to get still and dont want to spend too much money. Since I see cd players and mp3 players work well I have options.

that way if you or the school has books on tape (which are often still really good stories) you can still use them. you can get books on cd from scholastic that are great to. having a machine/player that will do both and to which you can hook up multiple headphones (can get a 'splitter box' from lakeshore and other places) means you're not limited in what you can use.

if you have books that you want in your listening center that don't have audio do like another poster said and record yourself reading it (kids often like hearing your voice better anyway) then transfer to cassette, cd, whatever you are using.

We just use our computer. Our school has a site license for tumblebooks and it has several animated "books" to listen too. If your school has access to the internet this is a great way to integrate technology and is low-cost.

I kept several of the books from our old reading series that we had recording on cassette with. I had my husband take the cassettes and put them on CDs so the kids can navigate through the stories by track # (I teach 2nd grade so they'd never get anything done if they had to navigate a cassette).

It works well and we have plenty of stories to get through the whole year doing 1 per week.

Do you have a local recycle place that recycles school/office things? I live in IL west of the city and there is a local place that teacher can go and get any books that have been donated for free, they also have lots of other things they are donated and free for educators. Check to see if you have a place like that.

Write a proposal! I got 5 mp3 players. I just record myself on my computer reading books and then download them. It's nice because I can have 5 different books listened to at the same time. Plus... the kids can't copy each other's response work if they all have different books.